THE CAUSES OF PERSECUTION 



the other hand, it is undeniable that such a 

 purely intellectual faculty as imagination has a 

 great deal to do with this ability to anticipate 

 future emergencies. A savage does not work 

 to-day in order to keep the wolf from his door 

 next winter, because he cannot frame in his mind 

 an adequate picture of what next winter is going 

 to be. The temptations of to-day he vividly 

 realizes ; but of the needs of next winter he can 

 form no mental image distinct or vivid enough 

 to determine his actions. So with the careless, 

 improvident man who is to that extent a bar- 

 barian in civilized society. No honest man 

 would ever voluntarily run up a bill, to be paid 

 on the uncertain chances of his income six 

 months hence, if he could adequately represent 

 to himself, in imagination, the discomfort or 

 even misery which after six months the bill is 

 liable to produce. I am not speaking now of 

 such pecuniary obligations as are sometimes 

 thrust upon persons by circumstances over 

 which they have no discoverable means of con- 

 trol. I refer only to such obligations as are 

 commonly incurred in civilized society through 

 excess of unproductive expenditure, or what is 

 currently known and stigmatized as " extrava- 

 gance." The results of extravagant expenditure, 

 especially as connected with the system of "liv- 

 ing upon credit," form a very large proportion of 

 the miseries by which modern society is afflicted : 

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